Science & Indigenous Knowledge

Maasai giraffe populations have declined by 52% in recent decades due to a variety of threats including poaching for meat, habitat loss and vehicular collisions. This decline is being coined as “the silent extinction” and has landed Maasai giraffes on the International Union for Conservation’s endangered list.

We are committed to securing the critical habitats required by giraffes. Partnering with Kenya Wildlife Service, The Giraffe Foundation, and Amboseli Conservation Program with funding from UNDP GEF, we're pioneering Maasai giraffe research and conservation efforts. In December of 2020, ossicone tracking units were fitted on eight female Maasai giraffe in the Amboseli Ecosystem to provide data regarding giraffe movements. This was the first-ever use of GPS satellite units on Maasai giraffe in Kenya.

DCP is a research and capacity building collaboration among institutions from China, Kenya, Tanzania, and the UK.

Its main purpose is to deliver effective research and build capacity so development corridor decision-making can be based on sound scientific evidence and effective use of available planning tools and procedures. DCP is funded by UK Research and Innovation’s Global Challenges Research Fund.

The I-CAN project addresses the challenge of combining protection of biodiversity with strengthened livelihoods, whether through recognizing local rights over resources, livelihood diversification, or stimulation of a new green, post-oil economy, including ecotourism.

The program focuses on the rangelands, wetlands and forests of the East African savannah, especially in the borderlands between Kenya and Tanzania where the world’s greatest concentration of biodiversity and its most significant repository of wildlife lies. The major goal of the project is to identify the most effective designs for future community-based conservation programs by examining the impacts of ongoing conservancy experiments on community livelihoods and members’ attitudes and practices towards natural resources. On the basis of the results obtained, critical issues of public policy – at local, national and global levels – regarding the rights and obligations of communities in managing and utilizing the natural resources on which communities depend, will be assessed.